


Nothing

by everythingturnsgold



Category: Frühlings Erwachen | Spring Awakening - Frank Wedekind
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 04:10:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11223027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingturnsgold/pseuds/everythingturnsgold
Summary: It didn't happen right away.After he shot himself he was wrapped in nothing. It wasn't dark or light or hot or cold or wet or dry or anything at all. But it didn't last. He didn't know how long it was before he started to flicker in and out of the world.This follows Moritz from his suicide to the end of the play.





	Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Abuse and suicide tags are for canon stuff, I don't think anything here is mentioned in greater detail than it is in the play. I wasn't sure if I was Supposed to use the character death tag or not because Moritz is already dead when this starts but ? I figure better safe than sorry idk. 
> 
> My usual beta reader is Sleeping and I'm exhausted and I have ADHD so p l e a s e tell me if any of this is jumbled nonsense or there are spelling/grammar errors. I have no idea how coherent I am. I know exactly how impatient I am though so ?? Here u go.

It didn't happen right away.

 

After he shot himself he was wrapped in nothing. It wasn't dark or light or hot or cold or wet or dry or anything at all. But it didn't last. He didn't know how long it was before he started to flicker in and out of the world.

At first it just felt like a scratch. Like a lot of scratches. Something clawing at his arms, his legs, his face before disappearing again and leaving little marks behind. It came and went and covered more and more of him, never the same place twice. He wanted the nothing back.

Then it felt like sandpaper. But on the inside. Pain. Fear and anxiety and grief and loathing and hopelessness and shame and more filled him up and weighed him down. Sometimes it was like he could feel the cold. Or his hair tickling the nape of his neck. Or the hard floor of his coffin. But only sometimes. Mostly he just felt sad. He wanted the nothing back.

Then it felt like dehydration. His mouth was dry and sticky and his throat burned and his head hurt. His skin felt too dry, too tight. But he could feel it. He could always feel it now. Sometimes he imagined he could move. Mostly he just thought about what his life had been. He wanted the nothing back.

Then he just felt lonely.

He wanted everything back.

He doesn't know when exactly, but he managed to get up. It took some work. It took some time. His head fell off the first time he sat up. He almost dropped it the first time he climbed out of his grave. It still looked fresh. He wondered how long it had been. He wondered if he was missed. He wondered if anyone noticed his absence. He wondered if they were better off. He wandered around the graveyard.

He was cold. And rotting. And alone.

There was nowhere for him to go. He spent most of his time in his grave. It was warmer there. Somewhat. Less freezing, at the very least.

There was nothing that he could do, either. There were no books to read, no games to play, no work to be done. He was trapped with himself. With his doubts and failures and mistakes. He didn't know what he wanted anymore. Everything hurt. And it kept hurting. And then it hurt some more.

Sometimes he would watch people come and go. The only people that came for him were Ilse and Martha. They planted flowers on his grave and left him wreaths and bouquets.

Martha planted roses. Just for him. The next time he saw her she had a split lip and he could see the bruises poking out from under her sleeves. She talked about it sometimes. Talked to him. He felt himself break a little bit more every time she confided in him. He could not comfort her. He had tried, certainly. But she didn't hear him when he spoke. When he tried to speak.

There was no pattern to Ilse’s visits but she always brought him so many flowers, she told him once that she picked them whenever she saw them and carried them with her until she could give them to him. She always planted some for him. She always watered the ones already growing there. She told him stories too. He wondered how many of them were true.  

He never once saw the person he loved most. Melchi never came to see him. Had his best friend, his oldest friend, his only friend, forgotten him so soon? The thought hollowed him out in a funny way. It ate away at him, chipping more and more of him away with every passing day.

But Melchior did show up. Eventually. He knocked over Moritz's cross and trampled on his flowers. And he kept on walking. Moritz saw him bent in grief over another grave, Wendla's grave. And he couldn't stop himself, couldn't bite back the hurt and the loneliness and the jealousy he felt. He stomped across the graves calling out for his friend, offering his hand. Offering death.

 

_You are not Moritz Stiefel!_

 

He wasn't, really. Not anymore. But he was so alone and Melchi could see him. He could hear him. If he could get Melchi to take his hand he wouldn't be alone anymore.

He spun a story of the wonders of death. The fun he wishes he could have, the adventures he might wish to go on. The laughter, the laughter, the laughter.  

And it works, almost. A man in a mask intervened at the last possible second to shoo him away.

 

_Get out!_

_What are you up to?_

_Why aren't you wearing your head?_

 

He could see him. Another person could see him.

 

_I shot myself._

_Please don't send me away._

_Please._

_Let me stay with you a little longer._

_It's terrible under there._

 

He couldn't go back to the isolation, the emptiness, to his own thoughts. So he sat and listened to them talk. Melchior tried to debate the masked man, to outwit him, to stump him.

 

_The humorist can be what he likes!_

_Tell me who you are, or I'll give him my hand._

 

But Melchi couldn't win this argument, he was wrong to want to die.

 

_He's right, Melchior._

_I was trying it on._

_Take his invitation, and get everything you can out of him._

_It doesn't matter how well he's masked - at least he's something!_

 

Something.

He wanted something. Anything. But it was out of his reach. He would never have anything again. He can't trap Melchi with him, can't doom him to this. He wishes he hadn't killed himself.  

And still, Melchior insists on arguing. If this is to be the last conversation he has with his dearest friend (or anyone, really), it won't be a fight.

 

_Don't_ _quarrel._

_Please don't quarrel._

_What's the use of that?_

_Why sit here in the churchyard - two living and one dead - at two o’clock in the morning, if all we can do is quarrel like drunks?_

_It will be a pleasure for me to be present at these discussions._

_If you want to quarrel, I'll take my head and go._

 

He had seen more than enough fighting when he was alive. He didn't need more. And it didn't matter, his final conversation seemed to have run its course.

 

_Goodbye, Moritz._

_I don't know where this man will take me._

_But he is alive -_

 

And it was right to go with him.

 

_Don't hold it against me for trying to kill you, Melchior._

_It was only my old devotion._

_I'd spend a whole lifetime of tears and misery, if I could walk by your side again._

 

And he meant it.

 

_Goodbye, Moritz._

_Thank you for returning once more._

_The happy, good times we had together in these fourteen years!_

_I promise you whatever happens in the years to come, if I change ten times, if I go up or down, I'll never forget you -_

_And one day if I'm old and my hair's grey perhaps then you'll be closer to me again than all the people who share my life._

 

He wanted to believe him. But he had been forgotten once already.

 

_Thank you._

_Good luck on the journey, gentlemen._

_Don't let me keep you any longer._

 

He wasn't worth it. The life that lay ahead of Melchior was far more important than the already-forgotten ghost he was walking away from.

 

He returned to his grave.

Melchior survived.

He straightened his cross.

Melchior will live on.

He climbed back into his body.

Melchior won’t be trapped like this.  

And he smiled.

Melchior said he wouldn’t forget him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find me on tumblr [here](http://ilovemoritzstiefel.tumblr.com/) if that interests you at all :)


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